China thuggish regime

Swedish media calls for action against attacks from Chinese officials
Journalists are denied visas and editors receive threatening emails
By Richard Orange in Malmö

Swedish media was moved to make the statement after a cartoon in the Danish magazine Jyllands-Posten came under similar pressure from Chinese officials. 

Sweden’s leading newspapers and broadcasters have together called on their government to take stronger action against China for its “unacceptable” repeated attacks on the country’s media, which have included visa bans and threats.
In a strongly worded statement, Utgivarna, which represents Sweden’s private and public sector media, complained that journalists had been put under intense pressure by Chinese government representatives.
“Time and again, China’s ambassador Gui Congyou has tried to undermine the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression under the Swedish constitution with false statements and threats,” the statement read.
It said journalists had been denied visas, while editors received a near-constant stream of threatening and critical emails and phone calls.
“It is unacceptable that the world’s largest dictatorship is trying to prevent free and independent journalism in a democracy like Sweden. These repeated attacks must cease immediately,” the statement said.
It said the government should raise the issue at EU level and together with other member states “strongly protest” over the attacks on press freedom.
Tensions between Sweden and China have been rising since 2015, when Chinese agents seized the dissident Chinese publisher Gui Minhai while he was on holiday in Thailand. 

Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen, is still being held by Chinese authorities and his case has been heavily covered by the Swedish media.
The friction has increased since Gui Congyou (no relation) was appointed China’s ambassador in November 2017.
In November last year he threatened that China would “surely take counter-measures” after Sweden’s culture minister, Amanda Lind, attended a ceremony to award Gui Minhai the Tucholsky prize for writers facing persecution.
This month he was summoned to see Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde, after he described the relationship between the Swedish media and the Chinese state using an analogy that many interpreted as threatening.
“It is like when a lightweight boxer is trying to provoke a fight with a heavyweight boxer, and said heavyweight boxer is kindly encouraging the lightweight to mind his own business, out of goodwill,” he told Sweden’s state broadcaster SVT.
On Tuesday the Chinese embassy to Denmark demanded an apology for a cartoon published in Jyllands-Posten.
The latest cartoon, which altered the Chinese flag to stars with viruses, was “an insult to China” and “hurts the feelings of the sick Chinese people”, the embassy said.
Patrik Hadenius, the chief executive of Utgivarna, said his members had felt moved to act after they saw Danish media coming under similar pressure.
“It’s not just a problem for Sweden but a problem for all democratic countries. Just the other day it happened in Denmark,” he said. 

“We felt we needed to lift this to higher levels.”

Hurting the Feelings of the Sick Barbarians

Denmark refuses to apologise over coronavirus cartoon
Agence France-Presse

Danish Daily Newspaper Jyllands-Posten carried the cartoon on Monday 

A Danish newspaper refused to apologise to China on Tuesday over a satirical cartoon it ran about the deadly new virus that has killed dozens and infected thousands more, with the prime minister stepping in to defend freedom of speech.
The cartoon, published in Jyllands-Posten on Monday, depicted a Chinese flag with the yellow stars normally found in the upper left corner exchanged for drawings of the new coronavirus.
China's embassy in Denmark called the cartoon "an insult to China" that "hurts the feelings of the sick Chinese people".
The Chinese demanded that the paper and cartoonist Niels Bo Bojesen "reproach themselves for their mistake and publicly apologise to the sick people".
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said freedom of expression in Denmark includes cartoons.

Sick Flag of Asia: The cartoonist Niels Bo Bojesen replaced China's five yellow stars with the coronavirus.

"We have a very, very strong tradition in Denmark not only for freedom of expression, but also for satirical drawings, and we will have that in the future as well," Ms Frederiksen said. 

"It is a well-known Danish position, and we will not change that."
After breaking out in the city of Wuhan, the official number of confirmed cases of the new virus reached more than 5,000 in China as of Wednesday, with over 130 deaths.
Some 50 infections have also been confirmed elsewhere in Asia, Europe and North America.
On Tuesday, Jyllands-Posten's chief editor Jacob Nybroe said they would not "dream of" poking fun at the situation in China but also refused to apologise.
"We cannot apologise for something we don't think is wrong. We have no intention of being demeaning or to mock, nor do we think that the drawing does," Mr Nybroe said.
"As far as I can see, this here is about different forms of cultural understanding."
Jylland-Posten is no stranger to controversy. 

In 2005, it published several cartoons depicting Mohammed, which later contributed to protests in some Muslim countries.

Danish sardonic humour

Sick flag of Asia

Ritzau/The Local

The cartoon as published in Jyllands-Posten.

China has objected to a satirical drawing of the Chinese flag published by a Danish newspaper on Monday.
The sick country has demanded an apology over the publication of the satirical depiction of its flag by newspaper Jyllands-Posten, China’s embassy to Denmark wrote in a press statement.
In the statement, the embassy writes that the drawing is “an insult to China” and that it “hurts the feelings of the sick Chinese people”.
“The current outbreak of a new coronavirus has cost 81 lives in China. At the same time, Jyllands-Posten has published a satirical drawing by Niels Bo Bojesen which hurts the feelings of the sick people,” the embassy wrote according to a translation by Politiken.

Bojesen’s drawing depicts each of the five yellow stars of the communist Chinese flag as a coronavirus.
The newspaper’s managing editor said the cartoon was not intended as an insult.
“The drawing did not intend to mock or ridicule China,” Jyllands-Posten managing editor Jacob Nybroe told broadcaster TV2.
“Drawing a flag and illustrating the coronavirus very quickly illustrates that they [China, ed.] are battling a virus. That’s it,” he added.
Coronavirus has so far killed over 100 people in China, with the death toll now at 106, Chinese said on Tuesday.
The total number of confirmed infections across China is over 4,000.
Cases of the virus have also been confirmed in other countries, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Nepal, Vietnam, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United States, France and Australia.

The Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Denmark, CCCD, also expressed criticism of the cartoon.
“We respect the freedom of speech and, in particular, the personal freedom to express one's attitude, interpretation and attitude,” CCCD general secretary John Liu said in a press statement.
“However, the drawing of the five coronavirus on the Chinese flag expresses mockery of the Chinese,” Liu said.

Jyllands-Posten, a centre-right daily, is the newspaper which published the famous Muhammad cartoons in 2005, with broad-reaching consequences including a foiled terror plot against the publication.